Television

May 12, 2020

The works of Tennessee Williams are a goldmine for veteran actors, and Guild Hall has a rich history of producing his plays. At one such event, here’s how it went for a reporter and Eli Wallach. How old am I? asked Eli Wallach playfully. The occasion was a staged reading of works by Tennessee Williams in 2011, his words from memoirs, letters, and scenes from his work, most memorably The Glass Menagerie, in honor of the playwright’s centennial year. 91, averred a reporter. With a smile, his finger gestured up. Meeting the challenge, the reporter counted to 95. His face glowed. That’s it. That great evening at Guild Hall, directed by Harris Yulin who also performed, featured Mercedes Ruehl as Amanda Winfield, and on May 16, just nine years and, in the time of COVID-19, a world later, that evening will be revived at a staged reading of “Portrait of Tennessee: The Words of Tennessee Williams,” this time on Zoom.

May 11, 2020

Of course, everyone remembers Jerry Stiller as George Costanza’s father on Seinfeld. Festivus? Remember the holiday of Festivus famously celebrated by George’s dad? Way before that he was the Stiller of Stiller & Meara, one of the greatest comedy teams ever, with his wife Ann Meara. And, as if I were paying a shiva call to his son Ben Stiller and family from my sequestered perch, I will recount a tale or two from this beloved curmudgeon comedian who died yesterday at age 92.

March 15, 2008 at Judith Crist’s “Survivor’s Party.” I am the guest of Sylvia Miles, and Jerry Stiller installs himself between us on Judith’s couch. Jerry Stiller tells the story about his Versace suit—he had had some sort of attack and went to the hospital—came out feeling incredible, thrilled with life. He goes by Versace where he had purchased a suit for $900 just a year before, and the salesman remembers him. He tries on this suit for $1200, a gorgeous blue silk with subtle dots woven in. Jerry says, but I bought one last year for only $900. Can’t you do something about this? Come on man, says the salesman. Don’t do this, but Jerry persists. Who can you call? Well Gianni is dead and Donatella is in Milan. Call her in Milan, and he gets the suit for $900.

May 04, 2020

The writer/ editor Gordon Lish used to say, riffing off a groaner of a joke, “Everyone has to be somewhere.” For characters in isolation in a new play inspired by the moment, Felt Sad, Posted a Frog (and other streams of global quarantine), the location is all over the place. That, of course, is the point. We are all there, be it Belgrade, Buenos Aires, Bucharest or Berlin. An interweaving of streams by six playwrights—Iva Brdar, Jorgelina Cerritos, Rebekka Kricheldorf, Santiago Loza, Saviana Stanescu, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon—this work glimpses others in their sequestered locales, their loneliness, creativity, frustration, fear presented up close the way we are experiencing others these days—only, this is a work of theater, and like it or not, we’re in it.

April 08, 2020

Back in the early 1980’s, Naked Lunch author William S. Burroughs grinned across the screen on Saturday Night Live, having just been introduced as the greatest living writer in America by supermodel Lauren Hutton. Usually writers don’t read from their work on television, but behind the scenes, Hal Willner made it happen. Willner, beloved music producer is best known for his work with musicians, but he was always literary, and he loved the Beat writers, and made recordings with Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg,Gregory Corso, and Robert Wilson, who had collaborated with Burroughs and Tom Waits on The Black Rider. When his longtime friend Lou Reed died, he produced the memorial event for him at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Now it is Hal we will have to mourn: he died on April 7 at age 64.

March 31, 2020

Back in the day, I knew a journalist who had a crush on Woody Allen, and joined a club with others similarly besotted. Witty and smart, this bespectacled nerd made them laugh, and that was sexy. Cut to Woody Allen today, a man in his ‘80’s trying to clear his name. His new book, Apropos of Nothing, is already a scandal because one publishing house coup caused a cancellation, to another’s gain. Hachette employees walked out in protest, leaving the publication to Arcade/ Skyhorse. Chalk it up to a knee jerk conclusion of guilt in the #metoo moment: a relapse of Woody Allen’s continued battle in courts of public opinion on the case of his having abused his daughter Dylan. You know the story. It’s complicated. A family rift. A woman’s revenge. In Apropos of Nothing, he tells his side: logical, clear, bewildered that his reputation remains besmirched after much investigation, his work boycotted in the America that gave it birth. If that were all, you might not want to read Apropos of Nothing. On the other hand, one of our most unique filmmakers also tells tales of his life, loves, craft and Manhattan real estate, offering a laugh-out-loud penthouse perspective: Brooklyn boy rises to the top.

March 07, 2020

Showrunner David Simon took the stage at the 92nd Street Y carrying a giant-sized bottle of Purell following a preview screening of the HBO miniseries, The Plot Against America, to air on March 16. Certainly, Coronavirus was on his mind, a point of concern, even paranoia, while he was promoting his program, famously a Philip Roth novel fearful about the future of democracy. Simon shared the stage with his actors Winona Ryder,Morgan Spector, and John Turturro. Why adapt this Roth novel now?

February 18, 2020

At the Greenwich House Theater for a memorial for Rip Torn, awesome clips revealed the evolution of this legendary actor’s astonishing film career from Baby Doll (1956) to Bible epics through roles as a good guy and then menacing bad ass, onto his Emmy winning television work on “The Larry Shandling Show” and “30 Rock” with a hilarious scene with Alec Baldwin. A bit from his 1969 The Bearding of the President showed him with his “Nixon” nose, his own invention, and at least one friend opined that he would have been an even bigger presence in film and stage but for his politics.

But among the ample work that was not screened, was a bit of voice over in the Oscar winning documentary Harlan County USA. Filmmaker Barbara Kopple needed someone to say, “We’ve got our guns now,” and asked him to say the line so it could be heard. “I’ve never told anyone, but now I am telling you,” Kopple confessed to a crowd of New York friends and family, among them David Amram who led the speakers off and concluded with a special song for Rip, and accompanied Rip’s twin sons with Geraldine Page, Jon and Tony Torn, in a reading of Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”

December 14, 2019

When a performer as dynamic as Gloria Estefan claims to be shy, as she told the packed ballroom at the midtown Hilton for New York Women in Film and Television’s Muse Awards this week, you wonder what life experiences had an impact. Her grandmother, an entrepreneur when she came to America from Cuba at the age of 57, had to push her toward her stellar career in music, she told the room of documentarians, actors, and film world visionaries. Her mother had to hold the fort when her father was imprisoned. These revelations are de rigeuer for Muse awardees: from Harriet director Kasi Lemmons to Caroline’s Comedy Club’s Caroline Hirsch who said, “From my childhood in Brooklyn, I was groomed for a career in retail, working at Gimbel’s for a while.” She never would have imagined the comedy empire she created, from discovering an unknown Jay Leno to her great event, “Stand Up for Heroes,” with comedy’s biggest talents performing for wounded veterans. Year to year, even comedy wannabe Bruce Springsteen gets into the act, telling a joke or two before retreating to his reliable “Born in the U.S.A.” Hirsch gets the “Made in New York” prize.

December 04, 2019

In its third season, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is as charming as ever, in her stride, performing stand up for the troops. In the episode shown at the premiere this week at MoMA, Mrs. Maisel greets a sea of men commenting on never having seen this much khaki before. In the military of course, clothes do not make the man, but for Midge, clad in a cocktail frock with just enough flesh tones visible, camouflage, and other earth tones become the butt of humor as she turns her back to show a bright red bow. A funny bit yes! The four hundred extras laugh uproariously.

The show continues with a Shirelles-type girl group, and a Johnny Mathis-style front man in a shark skin, skin-tight suit. The sound is familiar if you remember 1960, and Nat King Cole and the period hits. As we moved to the after party at the Plaza Hotel, we met composer Curtis Moore and his writing partner Thomas Mizer who crafted this sound for the show. Detail perfection, which we’ve come to expect from this hit, extends to its every aspect! When Amy Sherman-Palladino introduced, calling their work genius, she laughed at her hyperbole—but, we are now witnessing the smooth operations of a well-oiled machine.